The Personal Touch

I'm posting about this on the Here Comes The Guide Blog, but it has to be edited. I'm posting the whole interview here:

A Very Personal Wedding Dress

The great thing about weddings is, it's all about personal style. Take wedding dresses, for example. New designs are coming out all the time, from designers like Monique Lhuillier and Vera Wang. And they are gorgeous.

But what about the creative bride who wants her dress to be more than a fashion statement? What could be more personal than knitting your own wedding dress? Kathryn Ashley, who owns the Ewetopia Fiber Shop in Southwestern Wisconsin is doing just that. She is designing her own dress. with a bodice adapted from the Lace Edged Corset by Michele Rose Orne in LaceStyle.


The leaves on the corset-style bodice of this dress and those worked into the lacy skirt represent the season of the wedding (fall). She's using a 100% silk yarn called Cascade Petite in a soft offwhite.

When I asked what made her decide to knit her own dress, Kathryn laughed and replied, "I needed a really big, daunting project! I've always wanted to design a wedding dress, and so I decided I would knit one!" Kathryn has a love of costumes, and her design choices spring from her fondness for Renaissance and Victorian era dresses. "I love corsets and bodices and big skirts! But my design is not at all like those!" she says.

I asked what the groom would be wearing, and Kathryn replied, "I don't know. It's going to be an informal outdoor wedding in late September, really just a place for me to wear the dress! No bridesmaids, but the guest list keeps growing. For the ceremony we may have as many as 100 people." "Will you be making a shawl or a veil to wear with the dress?" I asked. "I'm knitting a shrug, the Lacy Hug Me Tight shrug by Tracey Ullman and Mel Clark in Knit2Together.

For that I'm using a strand of the silk and a strand of an alpaca silk blend, so it will be warmer."

I asked Kathryn if she would postpone her wedding if she wasn't finished with the dress. She said, "No. We talked about that. But I have time. And I don't have to make it full length." True! She has enough completed for a minidress right now! You can follow the progress of Kathryn's wedding dress at the Ewetopia Fiber Shop blog.